Through the last decades there has been a progressive increase in ED episodes by psychiatric conditions, which has led to the development of various models of psychiatric ED. In Portugal, there are several psychiatric EDs, however, several mental health crisis are being managed in general EDs, without specialized psychiatric care.This work aimed to spot relevant differences concerning two different models of care delivery.We compared psychiatric emergencies in two different emergency department (ED) models in Portugal: a metropolitan psychiatric ED within a tertiary hospital (Oporto Metropolitan Psychiatric ED - UMPP) and a general ED within a secondary hospital (Tu00e2mega e Sousa Hospital - CHTS).All psychiatric emergencies from 2015 and 2016 were analyzed in the two units (27532 episodes at UMPP, 11257 at CHTS), using electronically collected administrative data.Relevant and statistically significant differences were found in terms of bracelet color (higher proportion of severe categories at UMPP), proportion of episodes by Frequent Users (13.5% at UMPP vs 4.1% at CHTS); Readmissions (at 72h, 7.4% at UMPP vs 2.4% at CHTS); times of Triage-observation (23.3 minutes longer at CHTS) and Observation-discharge (7.3 minutes longer at CHTS).This work reveals several important differences between these two models. Higher frequency of episodes by Frequent Users as well as higher frequency of Readmissions at the psychiatric ED might point to greater susceptibility to misuse in this unit.These results contribute to better understand the dynamics of psychiatric emergencies and EDs, which may be of use to future changes in health care services.